The Amazon Code (21 page)

“They’re mostly harmless,” Reggie said, as if that made the anacondas seem like warm, fuzzy teddy bears. “They eat mammals, but if you stay out of their way they’ll focus their attention on smaller game. Plenty of other monsters around here to worry about, but honestly it’s the small stuff that scares the crap out of me.”

“Like what?” Ben almost kicked himself for asking the question. He knew he didn’t want to know the answer. Back home the only things to really worry about were bears, wolves, careless hunters, and the cold.

Reggie turned to Ben and grinned. “Bugs, mostly. The kind that fight in packs, working together to bring down animals a thousand times their size. Species of ants you can only dream about, and specialized insects designed by the devil himself.”

“Do not listen too closely to him,” Archie said. “He’s always had a flair for the dramatic. He’s not wrong, but most of the life in the jungle is harmless to humans, as long as you are careful and watch your step. The rainforest doesn’t need to be anything more mystical and magical than any other place. Sure, there is more life per square foot here than anywhere on the planet, but that’s all it is — life. It wants to survive and thrive, just like you and me. Not everything wants to kill you, and even the lifeforms that can will only do so if they feel their own is threatened.”

Ben listened along as they all stared out at the tree line. Both of the other men seemed to have a profound respect for the natural world, a fact he found admirable. Many people he knew had no appreciation — no
concept,
even — that the world they were living in had existed far longer than they had, and had thrived without their meddling and help. The Amazon rainforest was no different, and in many ways more intense and more self-sufficient than any other place he had been.

The men swapped stories for a few more minutes until the sounds of the jungle took over. Ben left to take another walk around the deck, hoping Julie would pop up somewhere. He had completed an entire lap around and ended up at the same spot, only Reggie and Archie had gone down below. He was alone on the deck, and he stared silently into the trees for a minute. It seemed as if the jungle was pressing in on them, growing ever closer to the edges of the boat. He couldn’t believe a boat this size could travel so far up the narrowing river, but he did remember that Archie had explained that they were traveling during the flood season, meaning the river would be wider and deeper than normal.

Still, there would come a time when the boat would no longer fit through the tunnel carved out by the jungle canopy. He didn’t want to know what the plan was then, and he had not asked. He assumed, though, since there were no smaller canoes or boats of any kind on board, they would be walking the rest of the way. No one knew their final destination, which made the trip even more insane.

Ben just hoped they would find answers, wherever the clues led. He wanted — needed — to know what Drache Global was all about, and if it meant he had to travel completely up the Amazon River into an area of the world no one had seen in thousands of years, so be it.

The darkness of the jungle spooked him, and it didn’t help that the animals and critters had gone silent. He could now hear the lapping of the waves against the boat’s hull, but the night air, thick as it was, carried no other sounds.

He frowned. He knew enough about wildlife to know that animals became eerily quiet when they sensed danger. The jungle, over the last days, had seemed to grow comfortable with the boat’s travel, so he knew it wasn’t their presence that had alerted it.

He looked left and right, examining the top deck to see if someone else had entered. Seeing no one, he decided to make one final sweep of the top deck before heading back inside for the night.

He reached the second level and was about to continue down to the bottom when he heard a small noise. It was a gentle scrape, the sound amplified by the boat’s hollow interior. He stepped off onto the second level and began walking toward the noise at the stern.

Night had fully reached this area of the world, and the jungle, silent as it was, was based in almost complete darkness. Ben considered going back down to see if there was a flashlight in his pack, but decided against it.
It’s nothing
. He wanted to believe the noise was just something random, a squirrel or something of the sort landing on the deck and scurrying into a hole somewhere.

But his instincts were on high alert, and he began to feel the adrenaline pounding. The scraping sound, quiet as it was, was deliberate. That much he knew.

He reached the stern and turned to the right. The scraping sound came back, this time even fainter. But it sounded close.

Just below him.

He flung his upper body far over the edge of the railing, trying to get a decent look at the lowest deck of the boat.
Maybe someone was walking around for a nighttime stroll before bed.

Ben knew it wasn’t the truth, somehow. The noise was human-caused, but someone walking around would not have been in the same spot for that long. Someone was sneaking around, and he intended to catch them.

He wondered if he could jump to the bottom deck from here, or if he would miss and simply land in the water, alerting whoever it was that they had been caught and allowing them time to get away.

He stretched even farther over the railing, and saw a black boot. He could see just the sole of the shoe, thick and deeply ridged. Another instant passed and the boot disappeared.

A moment later, he heard the splash.

Whoever he had seen had just launched themselves over the edge of the boat and into the wake behind it.

“Hey!” Ben yelled, turning around and starting toward the stairs. It was a good fifty feet to the staircase, but he made the trip in just a couple of seconds. He bounded down the stairs and onto the lowest deck, and ran immediately toward the back of the boat. He squinted, trying to see in the darkness, but it was useless. Night had set in, removing any hope he had of trying to see who the person was, or where they were. He thought he could hear the sound of swimming, but it was far off in the distance by now.

He watched for another few seconds, then heard footsteps above him. He walked back toward the stairs, ready to explain what he had seen to the rest of the group.

Before he reached them, a massive explosion threw him forward against the wall.

33

THE BOAT GROANED BENEATH HIM as boards and supports buckled and collapsed, and the air was immediately filled with thick, acrid smoke.

He coughed, but the boat was still shifting dramatically, preventing him from even getting up to his knees. He turned his head just enough to see the rear section of the lower deck falling beneath the black waters
.

Shit.

Reggie was at the top of the stairs, holding on with a white-knuckle grip.

“Ben! Is that you?”

Ben pulled himself up using a railing from the staircase. He knew the boat was taking on water, and fast. “Yeah, it’s me. There was someone else down here, they planted explosives on the engine compartment.”

Reggie uttered a muffled string of expletives, then turned again to Ben and took a few steps down the stairs. “Here, give me your hand,” he said. “We need to get everyone to the top deck before we go under.”

Ben reached up and allowed Reggie to help him up the stairs, which, at this angle, seemed more like the rungs of a ladder. He reached the next level and leaned against the wall as he caught his breath. Reggie was already rummaging through a closet a few paces away, tossing out whatever flotation devices he could find. There weren’t enough for everyone, but Ben carried a few life preservers back to the stairs and prepared to climb up.
 

When he turned around to see about Reggie’s progress, he was stunned to see that the closet was already taking on water, and Reggie was standing up to his ankles in the murky brown liquid.

“Take whatever you can up with you,” Reggie said. “I need to try to get our packs from the room.”

Ben knew the room would be mostly underwater at this point, but he did as he was instructed and carried up the flotation devices and coil of rope Reggie had tossed him.

The remainder of the group, aside from Reggie and Rhett, was waiting for him. He also noticed that Captain Garcia was absent.

“Where’s Rhett?” He asked.

Amanda and Paulinho, holding his side, both shook their heads.

Archie Quinones stepped up to Ben and helped him with the life preservers. “He must still be down below,” Archie said. “Where’s Reggie?”

“Still down there,” Ben said. “He’s trying to find the backpacks. If anyone’s still down there, Reggie will grab them.” Ben said the words, but he wasn’t sure he believed them. Someone had sabotaged their boat, and then swam to shore. Ben had seen them do it. If, by some strange twist of fate, it had been Rhett or the captain, Ben knew they wouldn’t still be waiting around belowdecks.

The thought chilled him, and he forced it out of his mind for the moment. They would deal with the saboteur in time, but right now they had more pressing matters to concern themselves with.

Archie started passing out the life preservers, but Ben pulled him back. “Hold on,” he said. “Let’s use those to keep the backpacks afloat. I’m assuming we can all swim, right? These will just slow us down.”

Archie nodded in agreement, and he and Ben began tying the flotation devices together using the rope. “It’s crude, but it will do the job. One of us can tie it to our leg and pull it behind us.”

“Where are we going?” Julie asked.

Ben looked up and into her eyes. Her anger had melted away into fear, and she seemed as though she had completely forgotten her and Ben’s earlier feud. He knew her well, however. As soon as they were safely back on land, Julie would continue with her cold shoulder and silent treatment.

“We need to get to land, obviously,” Ben said. “But there’s no way will be able to break into the forest without cutting through the trees on both sides of us. We’ll have to start swimming upstream and hope we find some sort of opening.”

“Swim?”

Ben looked over at Paulinho and realized the man was still injured, and probably still in severe pain. “Will you be okay?”

“I should be,” Paulinho said. “I’m not worried about my injuries, it’s…” he looked at Archie, then back at Ben. Ben was confused, not understanding what was going on. He raised his eyebrows, waiting for an explanation.

Archie leaned in close to Ben, bringing his voice down so only he could hear it. “We are not on the main river anymore, where all the boat traffic is most of the time,” Archie said. “Paulinho’s right to be worried. There are almost as many predators in the water as there are on land.”

 
Almost as many predators in the water?
Ben tried to read the man’s pained expression.
He’s concerned now? After trying to convince me that the jungle was only dangerous if you were careless?
 

“What other choice do we have?” Ben asked, matching the tone and level of Archie’s voice. Julie and Amanda stepped closer to them and took over the lashing together of the floats as the Ben and Archie discussed the situation.
 

“None, really,” Archie said. He looked at the group then
back at Ben. “But we are not trained for this; none of us are divers or even very competent swimmers, I’m sure. If we get into trouble…”

“We’re already in trouble,” Ben said. “Look around. We’re on a sinking boat in the middle of an offshoot of the Amazon River. No one is going to come save us; no one will even know how to find us.”
Except the group of mercenaries who are already on our tail.
“We need to hurry, no matter what we do.”

Archie nodded quickly, then turned and hurriedly helped the women finish lashing the floats together. Ben saw the top of Reggie’s head appear on the stairs, and walked over to help him with two of the backpacks. One of them was soaking wet, one was dry, and one was missing altogether.

“I don’t think there’s anything that would’ve been damaged by the water,” Reggie said. “But the river ate one of the packs, the one with the map and my rifle. We still have the hammocks and three tents, but keep close to that pistol, Ben, they’re all we’ve got now. You guys ready to go?”

“Think so,” Ben said. He slung the two packs over his shoulders and walked back toward the makeshift raft that had been built on the deck. The top level was now at the waterline, the back end rapidly sinking deeper into the river.

“Let’s get on with it, then,” Reggie said. “I would guess this section of river is deep enough to swallow two of these boats stacked on top of each other, so we are not going to get lucky waiting around up here.”

Ben tossed the backpacks on the flotation materials, and he and the others hauled the floating island toward the edge of the boat and lifted it up and over the side. It made a gentle splash as it hit the water, and Ben held the rope to prevent it from drifting away.

Captain Garcia appeared on the stairs, his eyes wide and frantic. He ran up to Ben and Reggie and started babbling in Spanish. The only words Ben could pick out were
agua
and
depredadores. Water
and
predators.

“Whoa, there, Cap’n,” Reggie said. “Slow down, take a breather.”

The captain shook his head, then walked up to Archie and continued rattling off Spanish Ben couldn’t understand. Archie focused on the captain’s words, the water creeping even closer to their feet.

Archie listened, then stopped for a moment, as if listening now to the sounds of the forest instead of Garcia’s. He held a finger to his lips, quietly motioning for the others to join in.

“Quinones,” Reggie said. “We don’t have time for birdwatching. We need —“

“Shh,” Archie said, silencing Reggie. “Just listen.”

Given no other choice, Ben focused on the sounds of the rainforest around him.
What are we listening for?
All he could hear were the chirping of birds, buzzing of insects, and every now and then a holler from a monkey deep inside the safety of the trees.
The same sounds we’ve been hearing for days.
Aside from the odd stretch of silence just before the engine had exploded, the sound of the jungle had been almost deafening. To Ben, the sounds became a homogenized blur, unable to be separated out into its individual components.